Not Out Loud
by Jean Cooper
Summary: TVSF contest entry. Theme: Doubt.


**This is my entry for the Doubt theme. It wasn't what I had originally, but I am still going to do the other ideas, it just wont make the time limit for the contest. Let me know what you think if you can.**

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Doubt was a term I had refused to use in my vocabulary for many years now, at least referring to me and how I felt…and at the least, not out loud. There was no room for doubt, to let that hideous emotion grow and fester like an untreated wound. Because for the most part that is what true doubt did. Petty doubt, compared to the real thing was frivolous and easily dismissed.

Petty doubts such as those that Sasha held. Doubts about looking your true age, about your abilities as a mother, those things nagged my dear friend. And it had become habit to smile and nod when she expressed those doubts to me on her Tuesday visits. But did she truly understand that to me, her petty doubts were meaningless?

She had her health, even if her bones ached before the rain. She had her daughter, however flawed, that loved her and helped her around the store. She didn't worry as I did if she was to lenient on one child and to strict on the other. Sasha had her thriving business, even if Duke ran his tab up exceedingly high. She had the money to buy the medicine for Jeff, no matter how imagined his illness was. And most importantly, she still had her husband, her pillar of strength, however crumbled his esteem had become over the years.

She didn't need to worry if she would wake up the next day, if she would drawl her last breath over the night in her sleep. She didn't have to concern herself with what would become of her children, if she would be alive to see her grandchildren. She didn't have to worry about scrapping money together for one bottle of medicine that would simply relieve her pain for a few hours despite having spent a majority of the profits from her business on it. Most importantly she didn't have to worry if her husband would come home, if he was dead in a dessert or a forest somewhere, vultures picking his bones clean. She didn't have to worry, to doubt his promise to her so many years ago.

But with each day that passed that doubt deep within me grew, festering and painful.

Rick…Rick looked so much like his father. If he hadn't had my eyes, I'm sure I would often forget that he wasn't his father. Even his stubborn attitude resembled his father, though I wouldn't dare tell the young man that.

My son had become bitter throughout the years, and though I forbid him to speak of it, I knew he had long ago given into that doubt and accepted that, to him, his father had abandoned us. My daughter never really thought about it I suppose. She resented her father for not teaching her anything, but how could he teach a toddler how to take care of a farm?

My children never seemed to doubt my unwavering stance that one day there father would come back. I kept those small scraps of letters that he sent randomly through out the years, clinging to them like my fading memories.

And though I despised the fact, I had to admit that those were becoming corrupted and ridden with the disease of doubt.

I often wondered if Rod was where he claimed to be, or if he was just sending short letters to placate me, to ease me and his own conscience. Did he lay in bed at night, another woman by his side, healthy and young, full of life that my disease had taken from me?

Had he truly left in order to find a cure, or had it been because he couldn't handle the thought of watching me disintegrate until I died? Had I truly married that worthless of a man that the phrase 'in sickness or health' meant nothing to him?

"Mom, what are you doing?" Came a tired voice from the doorway. I turned to my daughter, giving her my permanent gentle smile, my eyes nearly shut from the wide grin.

"I'm just thinking about all the stories your father _will_ have to tell of his adventures _when_ he comes home," I said quietly, not even acknowledging the awkward glance at the wall my daughter gave.

Doubt was a term I had refused to use in my vocabulary for many years now, at least referring to me and how I felt…and at the least, not out loud.


End file.
